America Should Set a Moral Standard

Ten years after the Soweto uprising, South Africa hovers on the brink of a cataclysmic confrontation between the races that could have profoundly destabilizing consequences. As the turmoil grows almost daily, it has become increasingly clear that only by ending apartheid can the nation avoid the awful abyss of civil war.

Most Americans agree that apartheid is a moral abomination that makes escalating violence inevitable. Thus the question that we face is not how to evaluate apartheid but how to eliminate it.

Since 1981 the Reagan Administration has pursued a policy of “constructive engagement,” in the badly mistaken belief that, through a closer relationship with Washington, Pretoria could be cajoled into abolishing apartheid. After five years the verdict is clear: Constructive engagement is a flawed and failed policy, a monument to moral myopia and wishful thinking.

It is time to abandon constructive engagement and adopt a policy of “constructive enragement,” making it clear that we will not continue to conduct business as usual in the absence of real progress toward the elimination of apartheid.

This week the House will consider a bill that would ban new American investments and loans in South Africa, bar the importation of South African steel, coal and uranium and withdraw landing rights for South African Airways in the United States. The legislation also would require U.S. computer firms to end operations in South Africa unless Pretoria within the next year frees all political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela, and enters negotiations with the recognized black leadership of the country.

Unwilling to admit that their own policy has failed and that another approach is needed, the Administration argues that by restricting commerce with South Africa we would make its government more intransigent, thereby retarding the prospects for peaceful change.

Yet it is extremely doubtful that the white minority in South Africa, which leads a good life based largely on the exploitation of the black majority, would accept fundamental political change in the absence of increasing internal and international pressure.

The Reagan Administration’s claim that sanctions against South Africa would backfire must be measured against its enthusiasm for far stronger sanctions against Nicaragua and Libya. Having decided to stand up against repression in Central America and terrorism in the Middle East, how can we justify standing still for racism and aggression in Southern Africa? There is a curious contradiction in the Administration’s argument: It apparently believes that sanctions can bring about a change in the policy of Nicaragua and Libya, but would be counterproductive in the case of South Africa.

The Administration also advances the notion that by enacting sanctions against South Africa we would hurt the people whom we are trying to help. It is true that most employees of U.S. firms in South Africa are black, yet these workers make up less than 1% of the black work force.

During the last 21 months about 1,700 black South Africans have been killed. If so many blacks are willing to make the supreme sacrifice to secure their freedom, surely their surviving compatriots are willing to endure the infinitely smaller sacrifices imposed by sanctions.

Citing the repeal of the Mixed Marriages and Immorality Act and the proposed abolition of pass laws, the Administration maintains that South Africa has begun a process of significant reform that should be encouraged rather than penalized. Had such changes been made a few years ago, they might have been seen as a persuasive indication of the government’s willingness to ameliorate some of the harsher aspects of apartheid. But any significance that these belated concessions may have had have been rendered irrelevant by the emerging revolutionary situation.

The issue is no longer the mechanisms of discrimination but the distribution of political power. Tinkering with the barriers to social and economic equality will not satisfy the black majority. What is needed are negotiations between the government and the recognized black leadership to establish a new political system in South Africa based on the principles of majority rule and minority rights.

Building on the more modest sanctions that the United States approved last year, we can set a compelling moral standard for the international community. Nor is it likely that we would stand alone for long. In the wake of the Eminent Persons Group’s recommendation to the Commonwealth countries that economic sanctions are needed “to avert what could be the worst blood bath since the Second World War,” pressure would mount quickly for a multilateral effort to enact strong restrictions on commerce with South Africa. If we act now, there is a good chance that the Commonwealth countries and other major industrial nations would follow.

Change in South Africa must come primarily from within South Africa itself. But increasing international pressure, combined with intensified internal resistance, offers the only real hope that the government of South Africa will enter genuine negotiations with Mandela and other legitimate black leaders. Without such negotiations, the prospects for peaceful change will all but disappear.